76 Replies to “Indeed.”

  1. Black Mamba: Out on errands this afternoon and BEFORE reading your post, I thought of Seinfeld’s Bubble Boy. Was amusing myself with the notion that perhaps, to liberate the Bubble Boy and to express our solidarity, we unafflicted could all be encased in bubbles.
    Sorta related (modern hypersensitivity): at the Whole Foods shop I go to (mostly for the salad bar) in Vancouver, at the deli there’s a sign warning us that their slicer slices non-organic as well as organic foods. Reflect on that for a moment: the notion that ordinary food processed by modern high-tech standards might CONTAMINATE the organic food grown and tended by ancient methods and costing twice as much!
    At the salad bar itself, we are advised that the green tongs are for organic items ONLY and are kindly asked to make sure that the green tongs stay with the organic items.
    Which leads me to wonder whether or not there should be a non-organic food free zone on the aircraft.

  2. Me No Dhimmi @4:16 – “Kathy doesn’t really believe these are bourgeois affectations. That’s her patented and highly entertaining rant-mode affectations…”
    Dude, you know I’m fond of you, right?
    How do I put this? Kathy has a problem – and quite rightly, says me – with this whole “Glenn Beck doesn’t mean a word he says” and “Rush Limbaugh is a charlatan who’se making it up for money and a laugh” thing that some lefties float.
    Ans as I remember, she also recently pointed out that nobody’s ever really kidding.
    Which gave me pause, when I read it.
    Disagree with her if you want, but she’s not faking.

  4. When my kids were young, we were instructed not to send anything containing nuts in their lunches.
    We ignored it and sent peanut butter if they wanted. Told them not to share with the alergic kids.
    Bottom line we are not our brother’s keepers – alergic or not.
    My wife’s alergic – I just tell her to stay away from my nuts…..
    Dave.

  5. You must eat peanuts to have a re-action. Touching or smelling them does no harm. There is lots of real studies out there that proves this. Go to junk food science blog, lots of big time reading on this.

  6. Black Mamba:
    Yeah, I’m fond — very fond — of you too! Enjoy your stuff immensely.
    I’m in a bit of a panic here ‘cos I certainly didn’t mean to suggest that Kathy is faking in any way shape or form (ala, the left’s phony dismissal of Beck and Rush as mere opportunists who’d reverse positions for a bit more dough). Oh, no, not at all.
    I admire the woman and believe she’s totally sincere. All I was trying to say is that she has a deliberately provocative over-the-top style and often engages in hyperbole to land her points. One simple example: were she commander in chief, I don’t think she’d actually just drop nukes in troublesome places. This “nuke ’em” meme is not meant to be taken quite as literally as some of our delicate brothers and sisters of the left would like to take it.
    Kathy’s “Come and get me fairies” gives me paroxysms of laughter but you will have to admit that there are constituencies (including venerable regulars Vitruvius and ET) who reject messages delivered in this format, just as, for example, the very brilliant Coulter is dismissed because of her style.

  7. I think Kathy’s “nuke em” meme is meant to be taken literally. It’s the main reason I actually respect her. People should be taken at their word.
    Anyone who really thinks about it will realize we will eventually come to blows with different cultures. Nukes save lives. The lives of those who launch them without hesitation.

  8. Me No Dhimmi – maybe I’m naive. I’m inclined to take Kathy at her word. Nobody’s ever really kidding

  11. Black Mamba and Me No Dhimmi, as Kathy herself puts it: Five Feet of Fury, and outta my way!
    ‘Not to be messed with.

  12. As I noted with my earlier post, I am morte than a bit suspicious about a lot of this. Kathy just expressed it better….not difficult….
    I recall when smoking was allowed on airliners….in the back…..then…..a total smoking ban.
    The energy crunch following the failed Yom Kippur War was the real cause.
    Airliners pressurize via openings in the front and rear…..controlling the flow at the various ports renders pressurization…in the same manner air-conditioned tractor cabs exclude dust.
    The incoming frigid air must be heated…..banning smoking reduces the air needed to be heated and save fuel….and creats the stuffy, unhealthy interior atmosphere.
    But the propaganda made it seem to be about protecting the passengers from the dreaded “secondhand smoke”. A situation the “smoke nazis” exploited shamelessly.
    My former GP is the local anti-smoking activist—-who prescibes meds over the telephone to nursing homes—-or tries to—-the staff makes him come and actually examine the resident—kudos to the staff.

  14. The problem with the whole I’m Angry and I’m Proud of It
    shtick was perhaps best elucidated by Albert Einstein, who
    noted that: “Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools”.

  15. And the Good Book says, “Be angry but don’t sin” (Ephesians 4:26).
    Say what you mean, mean what you say, and don’t kick the dog.
    What’s wrong with that?

  18. Anger denied is certainly unhealthy (remember those 70s “new age cults” like est, and stuff, in which folks walked around with pasted on smiles).
    Anger expressed openly and honestly is healthy.
    Anger is a normal human emotion, and as such one cannot be a fool to experience it. To hold it in, though, for a long period of time, can be corrosive to ones personality.
    What Einstein thought of anger is of no special consequence. His genius in the field of mathematics/physics doesn’t necessarily translate to other fields of inquiry. I gather, for example, that he was a fan of socialism, and didn’t understand free markets.
    And I spose a spike in adrenaline is foolish too eh?

  19. It is not the case that I have never been angry, BATB, however, I have been working on the problem diligently, and I can say (with some degree of satisfaction) that I have been continuing to advance my skills thereto: day by day I care less and less about more and more. And, indeed, the blog-o-sphere has helped me out immensely here: before I had such good data on how normal people (present company excluded, of course) actually think, that is to say, when I thought much more highly of our species, I cared to a degree that I now realize was far too high.
    Thus have I chucked out any transient sense of studied pessimism that I might have been temporarily entertaining, and returned to the sense of mindless optimism that characterized my behaviour before that, for as Heinlein said: “Don’t ever become a pessimist… a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events”.

  20. Yeah, Me No Dhimmi. Check!
    Vitruvius, I’m a cheerleader for optimism if that works for you.
    However, I do detect an animus to religion which is of concern to me.
    I’ve just come across this link which made me think of you:
    http://bigjournalism.com/bhallowell/2010/01/10/o-ye-of-little-faith-the-secular-american-media-and-religion/#more-1694
    You know, it’s not just the secular american media that thinks that religious faith is a bad word — well, two bad words.

  21. Your detector is faulty. I’m not opposed to religion, some of the best people I know are religious. And some are not religious. So I have no animosity thereto either way, rather, as I explained above: I don’t care. Proselytizing, on the other hand, is a different matter. Proselytizers should be shot (but I don’t mean that in an angry way).

  22. Vit, could you give me your definition of a proselytizer? (And I appreciate your not telling me in an angry way … if you’re really not angry 😉

  23. My understanding, BATB, is that proselytize means “to induce a person to convert from one belief, doctrine, cause, or faith to another”. It’s the word induce that’s the problem for me, if it was simply invite then it would just be another case of my not caring. And I truly don’t mean shot in an angry way, as I explained above: I mean shot in an optimistic way.

  24. Well, I’m relieved that when you say they should be shot you mean it in an optimistic way. I’m sure it makes all the difference. (Do you just hit them in the leg?)
    When you’ve been blessed by the gift of faith — and all that that means: forgiveness, healing, joy, hope — you want to share what you’ve experienced about G*d in your life and you are called to share it. It’s the most generous thing you can do. But, I like the distinction you make between inviting others to openness to your faith and inducing them, forcing them, threatening them to embrace your faith.
    The latter approach never works in my experience. You might be able to produce a head count for head office, but hearts and minds aren’t fundamentally changed — and may be damaged.

  25. Damaged, or shot! And now, BATB, I think we should activate
    the extended debate avoidance rule noted below, and let it go at
    that. I must say though, that, as always, it’s been a slice 😉

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